Glorious Mystery - Chapter 14

Here we are dealing with the "motives unto the love of Christ" (p. 161) When Jesus calls us to love him, as when God called Israel to serve him (Exodus 20) he reminds us of all the benefits we have as a result of his work for us. We will look at these under two headings:

1. The acts of Christ - Whatever he has done as prophet, priest or king, is to speak into the hearts of believers: "O love the Lord Jesus in sincerity." The work of Jesus is intimately linked with the fruits we receive from it in our own life, if man has notreceived the Lord Jesus, he will not love the Lord Jesus: "Let men pretend what they will. there needs no greater, no other evidence, , to prove that any one doth not really believe the things that are reported in the Gospel, concerning the mediatory actings of Christ ... that his heart is not engaged by them unto the most ardent lovetowards [Jesus'] person." (p. 163-164) If we are people who are not active in meditating on the work of Christ, then the Christian faith is not yet ours: "Hath he the heart of a Christian , who doth not often meditate on the death of his Saviour?" (p. 164) Them that reject the gospel do err greater than the angels who feel, for they were not redeemed and then turned, as the world has been.

2. The spring of the acts of Christ - Which is his love for us. We will speak of Christ's love for us under two heads. a) it is the spring of him taking our human nature and doing and suffering that which he did in it. This love: "carried him through the death and dread which he underwent in the accomplishment of it." (p. 166) Therefore those who cannot grasp the love of Christ in these things know nothing of being a Christian (Owen then renounces those who claim that throwing one's own love onto the person of Christ is fanciful and of the imagination). b) this love of Christ is perfect as to require a reciprocal love from humans. Christ died for us: "Though we were as deformed as sin could render us, and more deeply indebted than the whole creation could pay or answer" (p. 168)